Bored of boobies now.

THE problem with setting out to shock people is that you get to the bottom of your bucket quite quickly.

You do something outrageous and then have to come up with something worse next time or you're boring. The whole point about surprise, you see, is that it's surprising.

Which is why, I imagine, Lady Gaga is running out of ways not to wear clothes. 

We've seen body stockings, we've seen bum, boobs, and nipple covers. Apparently we're now at metal-studded lady parts.

I predict that within a year she'll announce she's converted to Islam or taken the veil; she's nowhere else left to go.

Wanted: Bond villain superYoda.

I HAVE long thought the family home of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin must be a total fun vacuum and now we have the proof.

The world's most watery couple have advertised for a tutor to give their two children, aged five and seven, some extra-curricular lessons - in ancient Greek, chess, Japanese, Latin, sailing, philosophy, art, and drama. They must also be young, humourous and sporty, and able to play at least two musical instruments.

Never mind that such a gifted candidate would probably be more interested in building an underground lair, instructing young Jedis or rescuing semi-blind female reporters while wearing pants on top of his tights, than teaching two little rich kids on macrobiotic diets that lentils are fun.

Never mind that someone with those skills could probably rule the world and make billions, and thus may well turn their nose up at the £62,000-a-year salary, west London flat and a half-share in a hybrid car.

And never mind that he or she would have to let Gwyneth win at chess, even when she's following the rules for Ludo and complaining it's all too phallocentric.

What's more important about this is that a great deal of the topics listed are the kind of things parents normally teach their children.

I never had a tutor outside school. Instead my gran educated me on politics and feminism; my mum taught me sociology and how to live; my grandad showed me wit and the art of argument; my dad the sciences and Greek principles of engineering (he's fond of quoting Archimedes); and I picked up the art of being a drama queen all by myself.

If they hadn't done those things, I might still have learned them. But then I wouldn't have had half as much fun or happy memories, and nor would my parents and grandparents.

It all makes me wonder what the hell La Paltrow and Piss Martin's children must think. I can only imagine them tripping sadly downstairs in their organic, non-gender specific dressing gowns, like Jane and Michael Banks in Mary Poppins, with their own idea of a perfect tutor.

Except that rather than asking for "a cheery disposition, rosy cheeks and no warts" I bet they'd be asking for trips to KFC, fizzy drinks, unfettered internet access and an XBox.

"No, mummy! Not more lentils!"

Welcome to the Middle Ages.

SO Kate and Wills' wedding is to be screened live on YouTube - how very 21st century.

Except it is the very definition of "pissing in the wind" when you consider that the Royal Family is so old-fashioned it is only just aware of the invention of the wheel, much less t'internet.

I'm fed up with people saying how modern and lovely the wedding is. It's not. It's about as modern as Midsomer Murders is multi-cultural.

The "we're all in it together, austerity doncherknow" wedding is costing the taxpayer, at the last count, £20m. The wealthy bride has been bred from birth to marry into the upper classes and never lift a finger, and us peasants are expected to gather outside in our smelly masses and be happy for them. I'm not unhappy for them, I just couldn't give much of a toss, and from what I can gather most people feel the same.

Meanwhile the bride, who like the rest of the country barely sets foot in a church except for social occasions, has suddenly had to experience something a Palace spokesman has called "a journey into faith" and be confirmed into the Church of England because hubby will eventually be head of it. Were she a Roman Catholic she'd be banned by law from marrying him at all.

Afterwards there will be some light charity work for her and some undangerous military service for him before they embark on a privileged lifetime of breeding while the nation looks on and checks its calendar.

It must be a boy, of course, even if they do change the laws on primogeniture, which they won't. They've been around for a thousand years despite several really quite good queens and a succession of terrible kings, and there's no way every Commonwealth country's going to sign off on a change to their constitutions within nine months. So a boy it will have to be.

And just to add to the fun the bride will be fully aware that while this was once the one family that would never divorce that horse has rather bolted now, so if in the years to come she's found to be wanting she'll be out on her bum quicker than you can say 'Queen Camilla'. Should that happen there is no way she will ever be allowed to work, bitch about her ex, or see her own children on Christmas Day.

Now if anyone can tell me in what way any of that is modern, I'll be thrilled. Because it sounds to me more like the 14th century than the 21st.

If this was a modern wedding, they'd say "sod it" and get married in Dorking register office. Kate could work, and pay taxes, and have a point to her life beyond procreation. Her religion wouldn't matter: she could be an atheist, or Catholic, and no-one would care. She could even be a Muslim or a Jew, although I imagine both the Daily Wail and Prince Philip would have something to say about that. She could have a child and whether it is a girl or boy it would be equally entitled to grow up and do nothing very much just like its parents.

She also wouldn't need to have the rather pointless coat of arms which has been drawn up for the Middleton family, depicting acorn sprigs and some pointy triangles representing - I'm not kidding - the family's enjoyment of skiing, for the love of Mike.

Well there's nothing I like more than subverting things that aren't intended for plebs like me, so I've made my own coat of arms.

The motto of "file by three, home for tea" is very handy when you've forgotten your deadline. The family name is of course Vulpes, the Latin term for foxy types, the chevron is for victory in battle, apparently, and the colours indicate the family traits of ambition and guile. I couldn't find anything which shows an ability to drink the bar dry, snaffle the receipt and still write beautiful copy the next day, but not for want of trying.

Seeing as I come from a long line of hardworking labourers, I suppose I'm not very modern either. But at least I don't try to pretend otherwise.

Royal Wedding: the bland marrying the blah.

KATE Middleton's lovely hair. Kate's lovely smile. Kate's worrying weight loss. Her clothes, her make-up, her choice of tights, those ever-present knee-high boots.

Everything written about this 29-year-old is the kind of unquestioningly fawning PR which Nick Clegg would kill for, yet despite being hit over the head every single day with tales of how lovely Kate Middleton is I don't know a single person who gives a flying goddamn about her or her £20m 'austerity' wedding.

That's not to say we don't like Kate, or Catherine as she prefers to be known (annoyingly for the tabloids, as we prefer names short and sweet). She seems very nice, very pretty, very sensible. There is nothing that can be disliked. But at the same time it seems not many of us have fallen in love with love in quite the same way we did when Dear Old Di married Charles.

Prime Minister Dishface has urged us to party like it's 1661 but there are only 5,000 street celebrations planned, mainly in the richer parts of the country where they don't mind buying vol-au-vents for the neighbours. A group of impish republicans who applied for a party of their own in Camden were banned by the local council, whose members obviously understand neither democracy or satire.

We'll all tune in and watch, of course, but this time we'll be bitching about William's hairline and whatever Camilla's got on her head, not oohing over the dress or thinking how sweet it is when they kiss on the balcony. Instead it'll be "does she look bulimic to you?" and "they're only kissing because they have to". It's the bland marrying the blah.

William and Kate, however nice and in love they may be, are just dull. The stag do was dull. Their wedding, to which the Royal Family are going to be ferried in a fleet of minibuses like the cast of Shameless going to Ramsgate, will be dull. The dress will be boring and the kiss will be boring and we will probably never get to read stories about Princess Catherine's affair with a rugby player or Prince William telling an old girlfriend he wants to be her tampon.

And I for one will miss that. The Royal Family, whether you like it or not, is just a richer version of all our families; dysfunctional, fascinating, with a slightly racist grandad. The only reason it's still with us is because it's a soap opera and we decided in 1660 that it was more interesting having them around.

Maybe we're not getting excited about the wedding because as a nation we've lost our innocence, or maybe it's because, like a once-burned divorcee, the idea of another marriage leaves us cynically wondering how long this one's going to last.

Or perhaps it's more to do with the fundamental fact that this is a union between a millionaire's workshy daughter who dresses like a 40-year-old and a soon-to-be-unemployed hooray who looks like a slightly dense carthorse with a bald spot.